[ 32a }' 



LVI. A short Account of the Catise of the Disease in Corn, 

 called by Farnwrs the Blight, the Mildeiv, and the Rust. 

 %fAei2f.Ho«.-S/r Joseph Banks, Bart. K.B. P.R.S.* 



Botanists have long known that the Blight in Corn is 

 gccssioncd by the growth of a minute parasitic fungus or 

 mushroom on the leaves, stems, and glumes of the living 

 plant. Felice Fontana published in the year 1767 an ela- 

 borate account of this mischievous wecdf, with micro- 

 scopic figures, which give a tolerable idea of its form; more 

 modern botanists J have given figures both of corn and of 

 grass affected by it, but have not used high magnifying 

 powers in their researches. 



Agriculturists da not appear to have paid, on this head. 

 Sufficient attention to the discoveries of their fellow-la- 

 bourers in the field of nature; for though scarce any English 

 writer of note on the subject of rural economy has failed to 

 state his opinion of the origin of this evil, no one of them 

 has yet attributed it to the real cause, unless Mr. Kirby's 

 excellent papers on some diseases of corn, published in the 

 Transactions of the Linnean Society, are considered as agri- 

 cultural essays. 



On this account it has been deemed expedient to offer to 

 the consideration of farmers, engravings of this destructive 

 plant, made from the drawings of the accurate and inge- 

 nious Mr. Bauer, botanical painter to his majesty, accom- 

 panied with his explanation, from whence it is presumed 

 an attentive reader will be able to form a correct idea of the 

 facts intended to be represented, and a just opinion whether 

 or not they are, as is presumed to be the case, correct ani 

 satisfactory. 



In order, however, to render Mr. Bauer's explanation 

 rtiove easv to be understood, it is necessary to premise, 

 ihat the striped appearance of the surface of a straw, which 



• Copied, by permission, from the publication of the president of the 

 Royal Society, with addition:it notes by the author, who has also kindly 

 entrusted us with the original drawings, made bv Mr. Bauer, of Kew, 

 fjr the purpcie of enabling our engraver, Mr. Low ry, to do complete 

 justice to the merits of the originals. The time necessary for executing 

 them in that masterly style in which we wish to present them to the 

 public, puts it out of our power to give more than one of them with our 

 present Numbei. The other we hope to be able to give with our next. 

 — Edit. 



f Osservazioni sopra la Ruggine del Grnno. Lucca, 1767. 8vo. 



X Sowcrby's English Fungi, vol. ii. tab. 140. VVhc.it, tab. 139. Poa 

 sqvMtica. 



mav 



